I Surrender
by Devilzzz
Summary: War is something to lose to ...even if you win.
1. Broken Dawn

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I Surrender

Disclaimer: The marvelous J.K. Rowling all characters and settings. I own only the plot and my own typed/written words.

Summary: War is something to lose to, no matter who wins.

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As a defeated Ginny Weasley emerges, her hair brushing against her bare shoulders, where her clothes are skinned and her face is ashen, there is nothing to do but walk. Walk among the ground that has forsaken her, walk among the world that has betrayed her. Her knees threaten to buckle underneath her. Her family is dead. Her friends are dead. And she is, as well.

Blood seeps out of her kneecaps, trickling down into her ankles and into her feet and to the tips of her toes. Her feet bear no shoes. The clothes that fit around her are ripped, torn in several places, her face set like stone. There are bodies all around her, on top of each other, bloodied and severed, and there is nothing to do but wait. Wait for countless hours to pass by until someone finds her, and whoever finds her must take care of her. Because she is only sixteen.

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Because she is only sixteen.

And countless hours do pass by. Priceless time has gone by without anything to spare.

And then it comes.

"Weasley."

The word, spat like the name of hell coming from his mouth.

Why did it have to come from him?

She turns around, not surprised at the sight before her. She knows it is him, walking over to her, sitting beside her on the ground, sitting next to her, with nothing to do but wait.

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With nothing to do but wait.

"You're alive," he says finally.

"Thank you for pointing out the obvious," she wants to reply curtly, but refrains herself from doing so.

Because it's not the obvious.

Because she's not alive.

Not inside.

Ginny is decapitated, something dripping into her saliva and dissolving into her mouth.

It must be blood.

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It must be blood.

What she says back, she tilts her head until the hair falls out of her face and onto the back, staring at him. He looks as bad as she does, his eyes scratched around the skin, his clothes shambled, disoriented. "So are you," she responds softly, her voice like bitter ice.

"Yes."

"Who won?" she asked, feeling the tremor of her stomach and the quiver of her chin. "Who won, Malfoy?"

He pauses briefly before answering, his silver-blonde strands almost gone from his head. The only ones that are left are burned at the ends, like crisps of black.

"Nobody." 

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Nobody.

It hardly seems real.

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	2. Nothing More Than Restraint

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I Surrender

Disclaimer: The marvelous J.K. Rowling all characters and settings. I own only the plot and my own typed/written words.

Summary: War is something to lose to, no matter who wins.

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Both are silent and watchful of each other for countless moments. There is nothing to do but relent to a pause and murmurs catching in their throats. Ginny wants to say so many things but the words won't escape from her dried lips. She turns her head and looks at him, but it's like looking into stone because he won't show his face and she can't see his eyes and there's nothing left to do but wait, just like always. His face is buried in his hands, his elbows placed on his knees, even though his legs are shaking.

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Even though his legs are shaking.

"Do you think -" she starts, but doesn't finish, because he finally locks eyes with hers, and she wishes he hadn't because his eyes are as dead as hers are, like pools of blood to sink into the quarters of his eyelashes.

She feels her eyes sting and it's because dust has contracted from her eyelashes, and she tries to push them away but he gets to it first, leaning over, his gentle fingertips pushing the dust away so that her eyes settle for welling in tears in liquid form that when she blinks they vanish.

But his fingertips fumble across from her eyes and are caught on the skin of her cheekbone. He doesn't let go.

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He doesn't want to let go.

She tries again, her voice steady and calm like waves of air that rush through a rainstorm, but they can't get out of the rain because the rain splatters, mingled in the dropping liquid and gets caught in it, and gets trapped in it. "Do you think any of them -" her throat catches dry and she doesn't finish because she knows if she does, she'll have to face the agony that is the serene melody of the truth. Because the truth smacks in her face like thunder that strikes through her features and brushes against her afterwards like snowflakes.

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Do you think anybody survived?

Survived. Now there's a word, she muses silently, her eyes pondering over his expressionless face. Draco is as dead as she is, but he won't even show it, because to show emotion is to expose weakness and he wants to be anything but weak, he wants to do anything but cry, he wants to do anything but gasp, he wants everything to wash away so he can die.

He doesn't answer. "Sleep," he mutters, the word rolling off his tongue like a wave of an ocean that cascades against itself. 

"But aren't we -" Ginny is in puzzlement, she just knows this is a blissful nightmare, of course it's a nightmare, what else could it be? Her family couldn't be dead, they couldn't be..."But aren't we already asleep?" Her voice is curious, drowning in naiveté that when Draco looks at her with his lips parted in surprise, she feels soaked in stupidity.

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Aren't we already asleep?

Draco leans over and pushes the wisps of red behind the ears of her elfin-like face, and her heart takes an unexpected leap. She's not sleeping. Her eyes are open now, stinging, as if a force field of wind has just turned her over several times, and she closes them, because she doesn't want to hear the truth, the truth can't be real, it just can't, and falls against him like he's a pillow and she's his escape to unconsciousness. She falls asleep, lying in his arms.

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Lying in his arms.

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	3. Twisted Blood

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I Surrender

Disclaimer: The marvelous J.K. Rowling all characters and settings. I own only the plot and my own typed/written words.

Summary: War is something to lose to, no matter who wins.

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Like an eclipse of shock she wakes, lying in his arms in a sinful embrace, with his arms around her and she wants very much to settle into the warmth of him and try to make him not feel so cold but she knows its wrong to wake up with her nemesis so fresh so cold in her grasp like tugging at a whirlwind of the ocean and having it collapse it's splashing rampant onto her and let her melt in the icy cool air that sweeps through her afterwards.

She thought she slept in his arms at last night where the suffering had past but the pain hadn't bygone or begun to show but she realizes with fear that he is now in her arms, in his embrace, in her territory, and he is closing in the space between them, his head placed on her supple chest, and it feels like a pillow on her heart, something that holds her heart down and keeps it down with the tempting softness and fragrance in hovering in the air.

And when her falls over his face, tickling his chins and the sides of his nose, he doesn't make a sound. She believes that he is truly dead now, like a lifeless being trapped in her arms, like a baby that won't wake because it's drowning into a nightmare that's come true and is trying to crawl back into life but the nightmare's true, the baby's falling and falling and it can't escape because it falls like a thud, unmarked, it's eyes closed and they won't open again until heaven comes and calls at him.

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Eyes closed and won't open again.

Nobody can appreciate the beauty, Ginny ponders, the beauty of him. His features are gone and he might not have the skin he used to but it doesn't matter because when her fingers brush against his face, it's like feeling the leaf of a tree, smooth and classically made just for her, and it doesn't matter if the ends of his hair are burned because at least his lips are soft when she touches them, and it doesn't matter that he's been neglected by the other side because his eyes are depths that she wants to suffocate into.

And nobody can appreciate his beauty because they never understand, she thinks, poised forward, cradling him as if he's light as the clouds but heavy inside like the thunderstorms. Nobody can acknowledge how beautiful he is because they can't see his wings and all they want to do is taunt at his sins and make his flaws more visible, but she, she doesn't see his flaws, nor his limits nor his restrictions. She sees his freedom, his will and his hope, even though he'll never survive, and she doesn't know if she will either. Because it feels like her heart is being painted black, like smooth curves of a paintbrush slathering over her heart, painting it dark, because she feels dark and she knows she has to cry sometimes but she can't let it out because the tears are refusing to come, and all emotions are mingled into each other like several different flowers that cling to each other with their many colors and their many different petals.

He's as delicate as a rose, and as fragile as a glass that will break and shatter, and can't be put back together again, and even if you use magic to put it back, it won't be the same as it used to be because there are some wounds and creases you can't heal and this is one of them. And he opens his eyes, and sees her watching him, and says not a word that comes from his lips. His eyes say more, they stay helpless in their gray orbs. They're pleading for something, something like forgiveness, or something like understanding. 

Ginny understands him, even though she doesn't know how she's doing it. She talks with him with her eyes, and he replies. Her eyes are falling in love with his, because together they are gentle spirits that can never waver. Because he's the only one present, the only one to hold onto because she knows if she doesn't hold on, she'll fall over the edge and if she falls over the edge she'll land in the waterfalls, and go down, and down, drowning in the truth that stings her alive. They're alive, she tells him with her eyes. They have to be.

They're not, he replies silently, his eyes glowering like the sunrise. They're dead. And so are we. And she wants to say thank you because she knows she would never figure it out herself. And she wants to tell him something but if she opens her mouth vomit will spill over him, and she doesn't want to destroy his beauty, and she knows that if she blinks her eyes, tears will come pouring, and they will never stop, because tears have no limits, because tears have no limits.

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Because tears have no limits.

Ginny is frightened and so is he at the emotions that are connecting with each other. He wants to ask her questions and listen to her answers, and she wants to hold him as long as she can, until they dissolve into nothingness, dead on the ground, more real than ever. And she wishes the feelings would stop because if they don't, she'll explode into shreds, fluttering into the ground and mixing into him. And she doesn't want to be inside of him because she knows his pain is even more insufferable than hers, because now he is clutching her so tightly, as if he can't live without her, as if - if he lets her go, she's going to splatter into something he can't distinguish or comprehend. And the sobs are catching now, the sobs are caught in her throat, waiting to get out, and her throat is burning like a million different ember flames licking her flesh.

Don't let go, his eyes tell her, wide and fearful.

Don't let _me_ go, she repeats to him. Never, she says, and the tears are finally coming as her fingernails dig into his skin while he's digging into her own flesh, drawing blood. And if she didn't know better, she'd say their hearts were the same, because even if she's imagining it and even if it's not real, their blood was black.

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Their blood was black.

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	4. Love To The Rain

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I Surrender

Disclaimer: The marvelous J.K. Rowling all characters and settings. I own only the plot and my own typed/written words.

Summary: War is something to lose to, no matter who wins.

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Scrambled awakening reaches her like a pointless wave of air, brushing against her face while she cries uncontrollably, unable to contain the tears that she has been holding in for a long time. And she knows it's wrong to seek comfort from a man that indulges himself in vengeance but that's over now because his skin and blood is gone to a frightful war that she thought would never come and destroy them but it did and now she doesn't know who else to call to.

Their eyes are silent and so are their mouths like firm, tight lines that refuse to open. And rain that is real are pouring onto their clothes like sinking ember flames that drench their skin and splatters like waterfalls. He pushes her hair away and does not say a thing for he is horrified at the prospect of never opening his eyes again, even though the truth is that they are still closed. And their hunger is gnawing at their stomachs like fresh rushes of nails that dig into their insides because as each second goes by it's like a day and as each minute goes by it's like a month and as each year goes by it'll be eternity and they cannot last for eternity because to them, there was never, ever a forever.

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There was never, ever a forever.

Ginny is like a flower that blossoms, except she doesn't turn into beauty she turns into ashes and he cannot hold ashes in his hands because he is already burned from inside to out, as if he has been raised in the havens of the unspoken, home to sinners, and he is not a sinner because beauty could never be a sin, because beauty is refreshing and pure and beauty knows no wrong can come from it. And yet when he locks eyes with hers she feels as if her head is pounding with a million different scars like Harry's because there is no one but her and him and she can distinguish the emotion in his eyes, because the tears are coming, and they're not ever going to stop. So maybe there is a forever.

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The tears are coming, and they may never stop. So maybe there is a forever.

Then the truth becomes more clear, like a horizon that's shining more brighter than ever, blinding her eyes, even if they are closed, because the truth is plunging within her. Her family is dead. Her friends are dead, and she will be dead in reality if she doesn't try to survive. But the thing is, inside there is nothing. No emotion but the addicting feeling to the only person that is beside her, Draco, who holds as much agony and as much anguishing pain as she does, and that emotion fills her whole black heart. 

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Fills her whole black heart.

And as the days pass by, they seem like years, and so many years have been gone from their lives. Their youth is young, and Ginny never knew what that meant until now, until she realizes that their youth is ending and so are their lives. So they take each other in the rain, they meet skin to skin, filling their lips with tender kisses and making the burning marks on their flesh to linger forever. They take each other in the rain, for warmth, comfort, love and need.

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They take each other in the rain.

Perhaps it should feel more colder to be naked in the icy liquid that drips upon their skin but surprisingly it is not, because Ginny and Draco have never felt warmer and their hearts are turning from pure black to melting red.

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Perhaps it should feel colder to be naked in the icy liquid that drips upon their skin but Ginny and Draco have never felt warmer.

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End file.
